SMKA Productions’ The 808 Experiment: Vol. 1 reclaims Atlanta’s hip-hop identity
From the outset of SMKA Production’s newly released compilation, The 808 Experiment Vol. 1, it’s clear that Atlanta has arrived. Yet again.
God bless the child that’s got his own.
From the outset of SMKA Productions’ newly released compilation, The 808 Experiment Vol. 1, it’s clear that Atlanta has finally arrived.
Surely, you say, the hip-hop capital of the world is no newbie to rap’s all-encompassing map. And you’re right. But among Atlanta’s emerging rap underworld - filled with hipster-leaning hoppers, 2nd generation ATLiens, and otherwise unidentifiable but objectively fly MCs - that original, Dirty South sound had been all but bleached out and forsaken. Until now.
With The 808 Experiment, SMKA accomplishes the seemingly impossible: It bridges Atlanta’s slick, hipster-hop derivative with the indigenous, red clay swagger for which the A has always been known.
Beats simultaneously swim in bass-drunk, 808 kicks while dancing between melodic, pastel-colored keys. Even when SMKA dares to sample esoteric pop songs like Sting’s “Englishman in New York,” the resulting track %22Alien (When in Rome) feat. Jay West, Savage and Gilles is certifiably stamped “ATL.”
Their secret weapon? SMKA producers Blake “808 Blake” German and Kyle “7King” King, along with in-house “hustler” Mike Walberg, are all Atlanta natives. Damn near unheard of in this day and age, right? Meanwhile, the compilation features plenty among the city’s rising crop of natives and transplants alike, including Gripplyaz, A. Leon Craft, and Young Trimm (“Caddy”), trio Supreeme (“I’m On Fire”), Wil May (“Sweet Confusion”), and o8o of T!Katz (“Fire in the Hole”). But some of the biggest surprises come from lesser known cats who turn in equally stellar performances, including Double R of Miami, Nuff Sed, J Beans, Dee Rail, Fat Tony, Niko Villamor, Jay West, Rome Fortune, J Young, Radcliff Hyphen, Crysis, Brandon Michael, Toussaint, Alexandria Lushington and Tom P of Decatur. El da Sensei of New Jersey-based Artifacts is also featured.
With only 48 hours since it’s release it’s impossible to say just yet, but here’s hoping The 808 Experiment represents a truly formative moment in what’s already proven to be a watershed year for Atlanta’s slightly off-the-radar hip-hop movement.
Needless to say, I had to talk to the guys behind SMKA to find out where the heck they’ve been hiding. Oh, and you’ll never guess what SMKA stands for?
DOWNLOAD: The 808 Experiment Vol. 1
Y’all seem to have come from out of nowhere?
Mike: I’d say that’s pretty much right. 7King has been an engineer for awhile, he’s worked out of a couple of studios around town. 808 Blake has been producing for about five years since his freshman year in college. And I went to a business school out in L.A. So it’s kind of a motley crew. But we went to high school together at Paideia, but since graduation we all started doing our own thing and then Blake kinda got us all together and wanted to get serious about it. So it started about four months ago, man, at Chik-Fil-A during lunch, and we just kinda said let’s start a company and get serious about it.
What Chik-Fil-A were y’all at?